


Twenty-five: Deluxe

by Moonlessmondays



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-27 02:25:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14415630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonlessmondays/pseuds/Moonlessmondays
Summary: Adele sings every OQ one shot. Basically, me using every song in Adele's new album 25 for oneshots! :)Crossposted from fanfiction.net





	Twenty-five: Deluxe

**Twenty-five: Deluxe|| Love in the dark**

_Please stay where you are_   
_Don't come any closer_   
_Don't try to change my mind_   
_I'm being cruel to be kind_

_I can't love you in the dark_   
_It feels like we're oceans apart_   
_There is so much space between us_   
_Maybe we're already defeated_

* * *

Regina Mills watches silently as people, couples, men, women, sway to the beat of the soft jazz music that is filling the room. She stands at the sidelines, a glass of champagne in hand but she hadn't even so much as taken a sip. She can't, not now, not when her stomach is a queasy as it is. Not when the pressure is on for her to be perfect, and honestly, one wrong move—intended or not—would lead to disastrous results.

She'd really rather not be intoxicated when that happens.

She sighs, her hands falling flat against her stomach, her breaths coming in and out in long intervals. The red dress she is wearing is too tight, not that her discomfiture matters right now as much as her looking pristine does, and she feels the material constrict her breathing—feels it constrict her every move. Subtly, she leans against the wall behind her, feeling tired of standing here looking nothing but a mere decoration.

She is, she thinks, nothing but a mere decoration, an arm candy, a thing that looks pretty on someone's arms, her Master's Degree be damned.

Being a trophy wife does that to someone. Being Cora Mills' daughter  _and_  Leopold Blanchard's wife does that to someone.

The room may be filled with people, Academicians and the other stuck up politicians and some millionaires, billionaires alike gathering in this spacious, cavernous hall to celebrate the odd years they have departed from their dear alma matter (it's really just a pretentious way for this Columbia University alumni to brag about the assholes they have become), but still, Regina feels alone. Like a fish out of the water. She isn't from here, and she isn't one of them.

"A beautiful lady like yourself shouldn't be standing alone," she hears someone say from beside her and she turns to find a man looking at her with a smirk, his dimples peeking from the slight stubble on his cheek.

"I can do as I please," she bites back at the stranger, feeling her temper rise at the insinuation, for she already feels so much like a decoration, a trophy, there isn't a need to rub it in her face, really. It is rather belatedly that she realizes that she probably shouldn't let the animosity grown between them, just in case he is someone important to her husband. "I'm sorry," she whispers as she bites her lip in remorse. "I didn't mean to be rude."

She might just have inadvertently screwed this up for her husband.

She'll probably pay for that later.

But the man only looks at her with an amused expression, his lips stretching into a smile, and those dimples are still on prominent display. "No problem, milady," he says charmingly. "If I had to wear a dress so constricting, and shoes so high as you do all night, then I'd probably be rude too. I did actually once traipse around the halls in heels, and its killer on the back. I'm surprised you're still on your feet." He chuckles, and she finds herself smiling along with him, unable to disagree. "Robin Locksley, at your service."

He offers his hand to her and she looks down to it, debating whether or not she should take it and shake it, but deciding against that, just in case Leopold would be watching, and god knows what he would think then.

"Regina Mills," she says instead, looking at him with a raised eyebrow. "You plan to keep me entertained with your stories of cross-dressing?" The chuckle that rumbles from deep within his chest makes her smile and bite her lip, enjoying the feeling of having made him laugh like that—for some insane reason.

"I am no cross-dresser, and I'm afraid that is the last bit of that story, but I could certainly try to keep you entertained," he counters, dropping the hand she hadn't taken. If he is offended by her somewhat rude gesture, he doesn't say. He looks at her and smiles. "So, what has you sulking here in the dark, so far away from the festivities, Ms. Mills?"

She bites her lip, the impulse to correct him—should he get the wrong idea—jumping at her, but she swallows it down—why should it matter?

"Free food, I suppose," she teases, making him chuckle once more—and that sound, that sound does  _things_  to her that she cannot explain. But no, it's wrong. She can't do that. "And good wine."

After tonight, he will be just another stranger who dared keep her company in one of her husband's parties.

"Ah but you're not drinking any," he points out as he takes the glass of champagne from her hand. Just then, a maitre d passes through them, right behind her and he grabs two glasses of what seems to be whisky, having to lean over her to grab them. Her breath hitches and she prays to god that he doesn't hear. He smiles at her, handing her the glass. "You need something more magical than just champagne."

Her eyebrow raises again as she gives him a questioning look. "You want to drink? Now?" she asks and watches him nod. She takes the glass he's offered to her.

"Well, we deserve it, don't you think?" he asks without really needing an answer. He continues, "We survived that long, droning speech of that red head woman," Ah, Zelena, the Dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, "Had to sit through a good number of other people bragging about what they've accomplished so far… and we haven't dropped dead."

She chuckles at that. "I don't really think we should, though, Mr. Locksley." she says, fighting the urge to just down the damned alcohol already. The use of his surname seems to make his smile drop a tad bit, but she needs to do it. She needs to use the formalities to put a distance between them, put him in his place and keep her in hers.

"Robin, if you please," he says pleasantly. He nods. "And I don't know about you, but it's rather been a long night, I say we deserve the drink."

_Robin._

She lets his name roll around her head, her mouth, her lips, wanting nothing more than to let them loose, but no, she can't. It isn't proper. But he is right: it's been a long night; she supposes one drink won't hurt.

Smiling, she raises the glass to her lips and takes a small sip. She barely gets a taste of the amber liquid before Leopold is walking over to her, standing beside her and placing his hand at her lower back—marking his territory (she hates it, hates the feel of his hand anywhere on her skin, and she bites the inside of her cheek to restrain herself from doing something incredibly embarrassing).

"Hello," Leopold greets pleasantly, but Regina has been married to this man long enough to know that this is a façade, that deep inside he is nothing but seething at the sight of her talking to another man. "I'm Leopold Blanchard." He extends his hand and offers it to Robin. "I see you've met my wife."

The last bit was a cold, calculated move, something Regina knows is meant to push Robin away, no doubt Leopold thinks he's been sniffing around.

The look of confusion that dawns on Robin's face is enough to make her swallow hard, and she looks away from him, feeling so guilty, even when she doesn't feel think she should be. They were just having a conversation, after all.

"Robin Locksley," Robin says though, ever so polite. He takes Leo's proffered hand and shakes it. "She is quite lovely." He gives both her and her husband a tight smile. "You know I've read about you, president and CEO of Storybrooke Holdings, right?" Leo nods, the pride swelling in his chest and Regina wants to scoff in disgust. Robin continues, "And one of the most generous alumni of Columbia."

Of course he is. He donates thousands of dollars to his beloved alma matter every year, saying it's for good cause…only he's far too buried in his own ass that he couldn't see what a fool he makes of himself. He wants to make so many people happy, to look up at him in awe and reverence; he doesn't even realize that his own wife looks at him with disgust.

"Yes," Leopold responds, a hair more smug than he should be in Regina's opinion. "And what do you do, Mr. Locksley?"

Robin shrugs and takes a sip of his whisky. She grips hers in her hands with a little more force than necessary. She hates everything about what is happening in front of her eyes at that moment.

"I'm but a mere professor of literature in the university," Robin says with a smile. "Not as notable as yourself, Mr. Blanchard."

And of course, Robin would be, amongst other qualities, a well-read man.

Leopold nods disinterestedly, before turning to Regina. "Mary Margaret has asked for us to go home," he says as though whatever his darling daughter says is the prophecy itself. "Let's go."

It's a command, not a request, and Regina bristles at it, at him, at this vile man she calls her husband. But she is not about to embarrass herself in public, and so she nods and purses her lips, sparing one more look at Robin before she is turning away from him.

She'll probably never see him again.

**…**

She does see him again.

Surprisingly, she does see him again.

A few weeks (or has it been a month? She isn't sure anymore—the weeks blend with each other it seems) after she's sworn up and down that she won't ever see him again and should therefore forget about those piercing blue eyes, and that dimpled smile that does things—wonderfully frustrating things, sinful things to her, she sees him.

It was a Friday and she was at a diner, Granny's—one of the only diners in the whole of Manhattan that she actually likes. It's a quaint little diner near Central Park, nowhere near the upscale ones at the Upper East Side, and something that Cora would scoff at, but Regina likes it. They serve good food, have great servers, and is near Central Park, where she mostly spends her days, trying to get away from the four walls of Leopold's mansion.

It had just been one of those days that she felt so blue, she was in a mood, and she'd gone to Grannies for some chocolate frosted donut and a cup of choco-peppermint latte. She'd been sitting at a booth at the back of the diner when he'd come in, along with a tall, burly man with curly hair. He'd looked so handsome in his crisp white button down and a vest, looking so much like dream that she'd actually choked on her latte.

She wasn't, isn't, supposed to have thoughts like that about him. She's married. And he, well he's a wonderful man, but he's not for her. So whatever strings of attraction and pull or connections she might feel towards him should be snuffed out (she at least admits that there are, even if she can't act on it).

And part of the process of snuffing it out is avoiding him at all costs (damn it, who thought she'd meet him here, of all places?), so she calls for the bill, waving at the tall brunette with red streaks in her hair for it. She pays for her food and tries to walk out of the diner without being noticed—not that that is even likely, his back is turned to her and he's chatting animatedly with his companion.

She manages to escape (her mind is congratulating her, to be honest), but not too far, because as soon as she steps out into the cold Manhattan air, she hears her name being called, and it's him, of course it's him. She groans.

"Regina," he calls, his tone almost disbelieving but hopeful, and Regina could about kick herself.

His friend, whom she's seen at the party that night, must have seen her and alerted Robin of her presence. And well, there's no escaping now. She turns slowly and looks up at him briefly, before averting her eyes. She can't look at those blue depths.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, an air of curiosity and disbelief in his tone of voice. He looks at her like he can't believe she's here.

And why? Because she's Leopold's wife?

"I can't eat wherever the hell I want?" she asks, pissed because really, she doesn't need this, doesn't need the complication that being around him brings her. She doesn't need this. No.

"I didn't mean that no," he says, his hand raising in surrender as he takes a step towards her, making her take a step back. "Regina, I'm sorry. I just…when you'd left so abruptly… I hope I didn't cause some trouble."

She shook her head. "It's okay, it was just time to go," she explains. "And, no you didn't get me in trouble, at all."

He hadn't, not really. Apart from asking her if she'd known Robin before the party, Leopold hadn't opened the topic any further. Leaving her to her devices for the most part, as he is mostly apt to do, and poring over his daughter who recently just got engaged.

All the better, Regina thinks bitterly.

"Well, you still owe me a drink," he says, grinning at her toothily, and try as she might to fight that feeling—that one that settles on her chest and makes her heart flutter and makes her feel light and airy, and everything nice that she hasn't felt in a long, long time.

"I owe you a drink?" she asks, incredulously, but the bite of her words isn't as hard as it should be as the corners of her mouth turn up in a grin. She can't help it, is helpless to fight the bushing schoolgirl wanting to claw its way out of her.

God, Robin is literally a stranger.

"Well, you didn't get to drink anything then, did you?" he asks, teasingly.

She bites her lip. This isn't right. The reality and gravity of the situation pulls her back down to earth and tethers her. "It's not appropriate," she tells him. And it's true—it's really not appropriate. If she feels disappointed over the fact, it's not something she mulls over right now.

"It's just a drink," he reasons with a nonchalant shrug. And yeah, sure it is, but they both know that it isn't. "We aren't doing anything wrong."

No, they aren't. He's right, they're not, but are they really going to wait for them to fall into the trap that many a man had fallen? She is but a woman, and really, she already finds it difficult to reign in the emotions surfacing in her chest at the sight of him.

"I don't day time drink," she mutters in a lame attempt to wave him off.

"Well, there's always nighttime, or if you have a curfew and are afraid your carriage would turn into a pumpkin, there's always coffee." He looks at her pleadingly, and God, can he stop looking at her with those beautiful blue eyes that seem to be looking right to her soul? "Besides, as I said, you owe me a drink," he says once more, still trying to persuade her.

She can't really refuse this man, not if she tried, not even if she wants to.

She bites her lip once more before a smile blooms and she looks away from him, trying very hard to hide the blush that she feels creep into her cheeks.

"I suppose I do," she finally mutters, giving in.

The smile that splits those lovely lips and makes that dimple peek out as he too bites his lip is enough consolation.

**…**

They finally have that drink. On a Thursday night three weeks later, when Leopold is away with her precious daughter on a trip that had not included Regina—which she is very, very grateful for because it has given her the time to hang out with Robin.

They have traded text messages, meanwhile—nothing harmful, nothing overly flirtatious, just friendly ones—him asking about her day, or her asking about the University. It's wrong, it really is, especially when she feels the giddiness rising up at her at the sight of his name popping on her screen at every text message, but she can't bring herself to put a stop to it, can't bring herself to put an end to the only meaningful relationship she has at the moment—even if it's this, something so forbidden, something sinful, something comfortable, something that feels right even when all odds stand against them.

So, they're going to be friends, because that's all she can afford to offer him. And if her heart whispers something else, otherwise, that she might feel the strings of something more than just friendship for him—that's something she can ignore. It's something she  _has_  to ignore.

They meet at Central Park, and a jolt runs through her at the sight of him in a pair of dark wash jeans and a blue jumper that brings out the blue in his eyes more intensely. She feels light, feels young as he mock bows at her, making her laugh at his silliness.

Really, she shouldn't even be here, her mind telling her to leave, but her heart along the rest of her willing her to stay. This is wrong, her brain screams, and she knows that in the end, someone is bound to get so hurt, but she doesn't want to go, her feet leading more to him rather than farther away and she's powerless to fight the pull she feels towards him, powerless to leave and walk away.

So stay she does, this time letting her heart take the lead.

He's brought her to a bar at the outskirts of Manhattan, somewhere close to the city that it won't be much of a travel, but far enough that it allows her to forget that a few miles away real life exists. He charms her with stories of himself as he drives them to the bar (they've opted to take his car and he'll just bring her back to the city so she can get hers), and she forgets the fact that she's spending time with a man who she doesn't even know, smiling and laughing with him.

For the first time in a long time, she feels free.

He parks just right outside the bar named Rabbit Hole, and he quickly climbs out of the car to open the door for her and help her out. She isn't fragile, and doesn't want him treating her delicately, but it charms her regardless, makes her shake her head good naturedly as she grasps his offered hand and lets herself gain equilibrium. The ground is solid beneath the soles of her Dolce ankle boots, and Robin's hand is warm against the small of her back, permeating through layers of clothing, his woodsy smell wafting through her nose, enveloping her senses.

This feels right, no matter how many times she tells herself that it's wrong.

He leads her to a booth right at the back of the bar, helps her to a chair, and not for the first time, as he sits across her and the lights flicker against his features, does she ask herself why she's here, and why she isn't making any move to leave.

She should. She really should.

She's a married woman, for fuck's sake, she thinks as her ring catches against the light and glistens, glaring at her and blinding her momentarily.

"Regina," she hears him say, his voice breaking through the haze of her musings. She looks at him and finds him waving a hand over her face. She pushes his hand away as he chuckles. "Welcome back to earth, love," he teases. "What would you like?"

Freedom, she thinks, but that isn't the answer to the question he is asking, so she bites her tongue, looks over the menu in front of her and clicks her tongue.

"I don't know," she mumbles as she licks her lips thoughtfully. "Maybe a glass of martini, with extra olives."

Robin nods. "Martini with extra olives for the beautiful lady, and scotch for myself," he tells the waitress who seems to have magically appeared at their side, pen and notebook in hand, looking at them, waiting. He gives the waitress a smile, and then she leaves them alone.

"Thank you," he says. "For coming with me tonight."

She looks at him and finds him staring at her, and she looks away, not able to stand the intensity of his gaze. She gnaws at her lips, picks at her fingers as her mind runs a thousand miles a minute.

She looks at him again with caution. "I'm married," she blurts out as if he doesn't know that already. But if she needs to set boundaries between them again, then set up boundaries she will.

This is  _wrong_.

But god, does it feel so, so, so fucking right.

"I know," he sighs, looking away from her. "I know you are, and I do hope that you know that I only am trying to get to know you and I am not expecting more than what you're willing to give—friendship is all you have to offer, and I'm okay with that." He pauses for a while, as if looking for the right words to say.

Funny that, for he must have read so many books and knows so many languages, has a very extensive vocabulary and intensive understanding of the English language, but he seems to be at loss now.

She waits him out, lets him gather the words he needs or wants to say to her, remaining silent and looking down as she fiddles with her thumbs.

"I just want to be your friend," he says softly, so softly.

She looks up at him. "I don't  _want_  a friend," she snaps at him.

He shakes his head and bites down on those lips she's been dreaming of for weeks now. "You may not want one, but I think you need one," he tells her, and he's right, and she hates that. Fucking hates that.

"What makes you think so?" she asks, half pissed, half curious. It's rather astounding how easily he seems to read her.

"You have this air about you, Ms. Mills, where you seem to close off on everyone, you like to keep it in," he says, and again, he's right. "But I think, deep inside, you do want to talk about it."

"What makes you think that?" she repeats and really, she feels like an idiot. She, alike him, has a degree on literature, a master of letters, yet she seems to have no grasp on how to use the English language.

"Because, you'd have left by now, if you didn't," he says knowingly, looking at her with that gleam in his eyes, and he looks so handsome that way, so soft and so giving, so selfless that she can't resist.

"You can't save me," she says, laughing bitterly as tears sting her eyelids. She isn't about to cry right now. No. "I'm a lost cause."

"You don't need me to save you, Regina Mills, because you are perfectly capable of saving yourself. You don't need a hero, you are your own," he tells her, his hand moving to grasp hers, and she shouldn't let him, should pull her hand away, but she can't. The warmth of his as he holds hers is addictive. "And you are not a lost cause. You just need someone to remind you that we all deserve a second chance. Because we do, Regina, even you."

She wants to believe him, she really does…but a voice nags at the back of her head telling her that maybe it's too late.

**…**

They had another night out after that, and then another, and then another, until weeks, months have passed and going out for drinks together has become a fixture in both their lives. She tells Leopold that she spends time in a new sort of club—of highbrow women coming together to discuss petty things—and he seems to buy it, lets her out of the house on nights she says they have meetings, when all she really does is meet Robin.

She knows him in a deeper level now. He tells her of his lost love, Marian, who had been taken by illness far too earlier than she should have been. He tells her of her beauty, and she hears how much he's loved Marian, in the reverent way that he talks about her. He tells her of the dark times he'd gone through after Marian's death, talks about the wasted dreams and lost hopes, of the heartache he'd endured when Marian had gone. He tells her of his healed heart and the faded scars.

She understands him, on a deeper level, and she tells him so. She tells him the tale of the rich man's daughter who fell in love with the chauffeur, tells him of her Daniel—the only man she's ever loved, and how he'd died, out of some complications with his heart. She'd told him of how her mother, instead of helping him, had kicked him out of the house because he'd been a burden, and not at all fit to marry Regina, keeping all of this from Regina until she'd found out about it herself. Regina tells him of how on Daniel's dying day, Cora had kept her from him, fixing her up instead to marry Leopold Blanchard.

Regina tells Robin of how much she hates the life she's been thrust to and feels like she can't breathe, can't live, that all she wants is to be free, to live her own life, not the life her mother wants for her.

"Why not divorce the man, then?" Robin asks as they sit in front of the fireplace in his apartment, facing each other, mugs of spiked hot chocolate between them.

Her feet are tucked beneath her and she is wrapped in the wool blanket that smells so much of him as she stares at the flickering flame at the hearth. She tears her gaze away from the fire and looks at his blue depths.

She's falling for him, she knows it, can feel it. Months of spending time with him, in this illicit whatever this is that they are doing… it is rather inevitable for her to fall so deeply in love with him. He's a wonderful, wonderful man, who had a zest for life that she's felt vacated her when Daniel had died and she'd been forced to marry Leo, whose honor bound him to remain her friend even when she sometimes caught the longing in his eyes because he believes that that is all she needs. She can't tell him that she loves him, shouldn't even feel that way for him, but she can't help what she feels, can't choose who she loves, so love him she does, love him intensely.

She shrugs. "I can't," she says, though she doesn't have a logical reason why. Or maybe she has. "It's going to be a scandal of epic proportions, it will ruin me and ruin my family and I can't do that." She bites her lip as she pulls the blanket tighter around her. "I suppose I should research on how to kill him and make it look like suicide."

She chuckles, but it sounds hollow even to her own ears.

She feels his hand grasp hers, and god, can he not? He's making this harder. He takes her chink between his thumb and forefinger, making her look at him.

"Is it really worth your happiness, love?" he asks solemnly, as if he cannot fathom how she can even subject herself to this. But can't he see that there is no other way? He continues with, "Because you do deserve to be happy, Regina, even if you think it's not possible."

The tears that gather around her eyes are too heavy for her to stop them from coursing down her cheeks. He wipes them away with the pads of his thumbs as he kisses her forehead softly.

That is the night that she thinks he might have stolen her heart completely.

But really, how can he steal something she's giving so freely to him?

**…**

She spends more time with him even when she tells herself that she shouldn't, even when it's wrong, even if it feels like she's treading through waters too deep for her.

But she can't stay away from him. Not even if she tried, and she has tried, she's tried so hard.

It's like she's found the other half of her soul and now their souls have mated and tethered to each other, never finding the strength to let go.

He invites her one night for dinner, just the two of them, as usual, and though she should, she couldn't say no. They settle for a Friday night, on a fortnight, because Snow would be away on a trip with her fiancé, and Leo would be on a business trip. It's perfect.

When Regina walks in the apartment, she immediately notices the picnic he's set by the fire. She smirks at him, but secretly, she's delighted to be romanced this way. It's a first for her. Thoughts of ending this and thoughts of her marriage are shoved at the back of her mind. She can loathe herself some more later.

So she eats with him, lets him entertain her with stories of her childhood, and she tells him in turn of young Regina. He listens to her with rapt attention, something that warms her heart and her soul.

He talks to her about literature and poetry and everything that interests them both. After they get into a discussion about Shakespeare, he offers to show her his extensive collection of Shakespeare's work, to which she agrees to eagerly. She's known him for a while but she hasn't known about that.

He brings her to a room, his own personal library, and leads her to the section where his Shakespeare collection is neatly stacked, aligned right against the wall. She runs her fingers at the spine of each book, feeling his eyes following her every move. Every nerve ending in her body thrums, feels alive… _she_  feels alive. And she bites her lip, feeling the effects of that one glass of whisky she's been sipping throughout their dinner.

Then she feels, more than sees, him move behind her, his hand closing around her hips. She turns in his arms and finds him impossibly closer. The space between them only allows for their breaths to mingle and become one, and she feels his heart pounding against her chest, feels her own beat in sync with his.

She feels her throat go dry, feels the draft in the air as the silence between them stretches and stretches. The time tics and tics, the grandfather clock just at the far right corner of the room tick-tocking loudly as the seconds melt into minutes.

She is holding her breath. That she knows.

And then it happens, he leans down and aligns their faces, swoops down and captures her lips in a heated kiss that has her backing against the shelves, head thumping against the wood, making the frames rattle. He kisses and kisses her, lets her feel his lips against her, before his tongue swipes against her lips for entrance that she does not deny him.

His tongue slips inside her mouth, and she meets it with the fervor she's been suppressing all these months. He tastes good, like mint, and whisky, and something else that she couldn't describe but is so uniquely his. His warm, wide chest pushes closer against her as his arms encircle her form more fully, tighter, while he kisses her more passionately, kisses her endlessly.

When they pull away, they are both gasping and panting hard.

"Whatever happened to your honor code?" she asks him as she fingers his collar, pertaining to the code he's told her he's lived by all his life—be truthful, righteous and good. "The one you've lived by everyday of your life?"

He shakes his head and pulls her impossibly closer, even she isn't sure where he starts and where she ends. "Today is just not one of those days," he counters, pulling her again for another heated kiss.

They make love right then and there, at the floor of his library, and though she could feel his trepidation over their first time being like this, right here, in a spur of the moment kind of situation…she thinks that she doesn't want to change a thing.

**..**

Later, when they are seated on the couch, side by side, legs brushing as he holds her close to him, his lips dropping kisses on every part of her he can reach.

"This doesn't make anything any easier," she tells him in a whisper as she basks in the feel of his arms around her, his lips ghosting over her skin.

"The journey of love is never smooth," he says and it makes her heart skip a beat when he talks that way, talks of love between them, between him and her. "If it is, then everyone would have it, don't you think?"

And of course, she agrees.

But what now?

"Besides I have a new code," he tells her his hand coming down to grasp her hand. "I need to follow my heart." He turns her around to face him. "To wherever it leads me. To you."

But they are oceans apart, and there's such distance between them…so how about that?

**….**

She needs to put a stop to this. This is madness. She's only going to get hurt, and god knows what would happen to him if Leopold finds out. It hadn't happened again since their first time, but it won't matter, not to Leopold. And if Leo ever finds out that Regina has fallen in love and made love with another man…he might murder Robin. Not to mention the hell Cora would raise if she finds out, and she will find out…Cora always does. Cora is already suspecting things as it were, suspects that Regina is hiding something, hinting at affairs more times than Regina could count.

So she needs to put a stop to this, even if it hurts, even if it kills her inside.

She knocks on the door of apartment 407, the light tapping she makes against the wood increasing in volume and intensity as the anxiety begins to nip at the seams of her heart and gnaw around the edges of her resolve.

She loves Robin, loves him so it hurts, and she shouldn't have let this happen, should not have let him get this close. But he is, and now she must do what she can to ensure his happiness. He thinks that she deserves to be happy, but it's too late for that now…too late for her…but he still has his chance and if there is one gift she can bestow upon him, it's that she lets him find his, give that to him the way he has given it to her.

The door opens and a confused looking Robin emerges. He is in a black tee and a light grey joggers, looking sleep addled, but he looks gorgeous to her, nonetheless, and her mind conjures images of them waking up together after a night spent in passion…and no, she needs to snap out of it.

"Robin," she whispers, throwing her arms around him. She feels him wrap his arms around her, holding her tightly, holding her close to him. "I missed you," she says with conviction. She does. She's about to walk away from his life, from him, and she already misses him.

"And I you," he says back, but he looks confused. He pulls back a little. "What are you doing here?"

It's a code for: where is Leopold? Did he allow you to get out of the house today?

Yes and no. Leopold doesn't know she's here of course.

"Perhaps we should come in," she suggests, feeling anxious as she stands outside his apartment. He looks apprehensive. "We have time."

He nods and lets her in, closing the door behind her. The moment he latches the lock, she pulls him to her and kisses him, kisses him hard, the tears coursing down her cheeks, down and down until she can taste them.

"Regina," he whispers, pulling away but keeping his hand grasping her shoulders.

She can't do this. But she has to.

"What's wrong?" he asks, worriedly, his hand lifting to cup her cheeks so she would look at him and make her look at him.

"I—Robin," she stammers, not sure how to go about this, really. She pulls away from him, ignoring the disappointed look on his face when she does. "We can't see each other anymore."

How is she supposed to live with him?

"Why?" he asks, as if this s rocket science.

It's not.

"Because I'm fucking married, that's why," she bursts out angrily. She's furious, furious at him for being so, so obtuse, at herself for being stupid, at the world for giving her something so beautiful, a man so perfect, but she can't have it. "I'm married, Robin, in case you've forgotten and we can't do this."

There is silence that fills in the words that they need and want to say. The space between them grows and grows until she feels like there is an ocean between them when they are merely five foot away from each other.

They've lost…both of them. They've been defeated before they even began.

She can't stand this, the pain in his eyes as he mulls it over, no doubt thinking of what is best for her rather than himself. Maybe, this time those would coincide.

But he is what's best for her.

"Turn around," she asks him as he follows her to where she is headed towards the door.

"Why?" he asks as he looks at her hopelessly.

"Because I can't let you watch me walk away," she says, tears gathering on her lids. "I might not be able to leave."

Tears course down his cheek and she longs to wipe them away. "Then don't go. Stay here. Stay with me, forever," he begs, and god if his knees so much as touch the floor, she's going to start bawling.

"No, Robin," she says brokenly. "Don't do this."

"Do you want me on my knees?" he asks, looking at her deeply in the eyes, "Because I will. Regina, please."

She shakes her head, and she feels sob wrack her body as he lowers down the floor on his knees, right in front of her, his hands coming around her waist and wrapping around her to stop her from going.

She holds on to him for dear life, holds on to him because this is the last time. She holds on to him and wishes she never has to let go.

But she has to.

She pulls away and asks him to stand, which, mercifully, he does.

"Turn around Robin," she begs, pulling at him to as she asks. "Please, my love."

Reluctantly, and with tears pouring down his cheeks, he does as she bids. She is unable to stop herself and she wraps her arms around his, hugging him from behind, squeezing once, twice.

"You've given me more than I was worth, Robin," she tells him, tears marring her cheeks and tainting her voice. "You mean more to me than I could express which is why I have to do this. I need to let you go and let you find the happiness you deserve."

And then she pulls away from him and walks out of his apartment, of his life forever. She closes the door as her heart breaks, and the little pieces make its way down her cheeks. She makes it halfway through the corridor before she hears the door open, so loudly it might unhinge, and she hears his hurried footsteps thudding against the floorboards. He grabs her by the waist and kisses her, kisses her hard and she can taste his tears and her tears and it's bitter and it's sweet, so beautiful and so heart wrenching at the same time. She wraps her arms around his neck as he kisses her, kisses her deeply, heatedly. Her lips cling to his as he holds her tighter against him.

She can't be brave any longer. She can't do it anymore. She can't say goodbye another time.

"Regina," he murmurs against her skin and she could hear the heaviness in his tone, knows what's coming.

She could literally taste the words that are going to slip past his lips, could literally hear it, and no, he can't do that to her, no. He cannot.

"I know," she whispers as she lets him kiss her again, kiss her deeper as if he never wants to let go. She wants the same. "I feel it too."

He rests his forehead against hers. "Then stay," he pleads, his voice desperate as his clutch on her hips tightens.

She cannot find it in herself to say no anymore, not one more time. She should have never tried to fight. She's already defeated.

**FIN (11/23/15)**


End file.
